Netanyahu on course for win in Israeli election

Benjamin Netanyahu
is on course to head a more hawkish and pro-settler government following elections on Tuesday, even though final opinion polls show a drop in the number of seats his right-wing electoral alliance is expected to win. A series of polls showed Likud-Beiteinu likely to take 32 to 35 seats in the 120-place Parliament. Its nearest rival, Labour, is predicted to get 16 or 17, and the extreme right Jewish Home is expected to finish third, on 11 to 13 seats.

About 15 per cent of voters are undecided. If many of these actually vote, they could have a marked impact on the outcome. Turnout is expected to be about 70 per cent.

Although Likud-Beiteinu is set to be the biggest party, support for the alliance between Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party and former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu has fallen during the campaign. The American election strategist Arthur Finkelstein, who is advising the alliance, predicted it would win 45 seats, and polls a month ago were forecasting 39 seats.

Support has drained to the ultra-nationalist, pro-settler Jewish Home, led by Mr Netanyahu’s former chief of staff Naftali Bennett, in a sign of the hardening of opinion on the right of the political spectrum.

“This election will probably mark an acceleration of Israel’s long-predicted . . . journey toward a hegemonic nationalism resembling apartheid-era South Africa," wrote Daniel Levy from the European Council on Foreign Relations in Foreign Policy. Mr Netanyahu has sought to stem the loss of votes by appealing to the pro-settler vote. He would seek a “real and fair solution" with the Palestinians “that certainly doesn’t include driving out hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in the suburbs of Jerusalem and in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, in the Ariel bloc," he told the Jerusalem Post on Friday. Ariel is a huge settlement that juts deep into the West Bank.

Asked in an interview with the Hebrew-language Ma’ariv if he would guarantee that no settlement would be uprooted in the next four years, Mr Netanyahu said: “Yes, correct. The days of bulldozers flattening settlements are behind us, not in front of us."

Speculation is turning towards the make-up of the coalition that Mr Netanyahu would assemble. Most analysts expect him to form a right wing/religious block, though he may seek to include a centrist party.

“Israel’s right wing has become more hardline, and Netanyahu is a relative moderate. He is out of kilter with much of his own party," said David Horovitz, editor of The Times of Israel.